For My Valentine

The Unexpected Gift

Their lives are like two wheels –
Hers turns in one direction
His, in the other
Yet they are held together by a
forcible
resolute
unseen connection.

From up close, it looks unworkable
but from a distance
their seemingly disconnected lives
are held in tension as a
paradoxical dance of opposites.

It doesn’t look like she expected.
In the beginning, she could only imagined what she knew,
what she had seen lived by her parents -
shared hopes, common values, time spent together,
a union of hearts and minds
headed in the same direction.

Instead, he offered her something unanticipated,
a different sort of gift,
one that took her time to fully accept and embrace,
a present of presence she wasn’t sure she wanted -
that is, until she had space to see its worth.

Instead of pre-determined points of view,
he offered her freedom to choose,
to explore new ideas,
to investigate and question different
political systems and religious beliefs,
and freedom to forge her own path.

He believed in her courage when she had none.
His confidence in her was more than she had in herself.
He patiently suffered her bouts of fears, with its ensuing drama,
and he steadied her
as she learned to stand on her own two feet,
to turn in her own direction.

Occasionally she longs for the old dreams,
for the life intertwined and growing old together,
but then she steps back and witnesses what she’s gained
from the distance hindsight offers
and she is grateful for the unexpected gift.


Their lives are like two wheels –
Hers turns in one direction
His, in the other
Yet they are held together by a
forcible
resolute
unseen connection.

They have become the picture
of the paradoxical dance of opposite.


To Jim, Valentine’s Day, 2011